The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!

Monday, March 4, 2013

A tired and saddened blogger

It's been a very long, busy day, reorganizing our bedroom and tossing out clothing, shoes, etc. that are excess to requirements. Goodwill's going to do well out of us this week!

I'm also saddened, frustrated and just plain angry over the latest Catholic Church sex scandal, involving Cardinal Keith O'Brien in the UK. Regular readers will know of my views on this long-standing problem; others will find several of my previous articles about it linked in the sidebar, if you're interested. What I can't understand is how Cardinal O'Brien (and other prelates like him) couldn't have had the courage of what I presume are their convictions, and resigned their positions when the sex abuse scandals blew up more than a decade ago. By clinging to their positions of ecclesiastical power, hoping to get away with past misdeeds, they've merely ensured that the scandal will roll on and on and on, never being put to rest, so that the Church is never free to put the past behind her and rebuild. They've condemned her to a perpetual purgatory on earth through their self-centeredness.

I'm sorry. I know most of my blog readers really aren't that interested in the Catholic Church or its problems, and don't want to hear me go on about them any more than I've already done. Nevertheless, it's still a subject that causes me great spiritual pain and mental anguish. I hope the next Pope can find a way to deal with it once and for all.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that for tonight. I'll get some sleep, and hopefully feel more cheerful when I wake up. Look for more posts early tomorrow morning.

Former Catholic here and still have many relatives who are members of the church. Have you noticed that Catholics in general seem to have the same reaction to the church and child abuse by priests & the following (and continuing) cover-up, as do Democrats about Obama's tearing the country down?

It's as obvious as anything in the world, but if they just don't talk about it, and don't allow others to talk about it, it will all go away.

Well, I am a Catholic, and I don't feel that way at all, Bob. I don't care for the cover-ups, and have been praying that the Church would do a little house-cleaning. Unfortunately, the men that would need to do the house-cleaning are all-too-often the ones that need to to be cleared out and gotten rid of. If they weren't directly complicit in the acts, the were indirectly complicit by covering it up, merely moving a known problem from one parish to another without so much as a "Oh, by the way..." to the new parish, where the problems and abuse could start all over. The abusers themselves were "rewarded" with a whole new set of victims.

It is an evil and a cancer, and it needs rooted out. And most aggravating of all is the heaps of abuse and scorn laid at the feet of the many good priests and bishops who have done nothing wrong. They are looked at askance as though they themselves are pedophiles or rapists --and without cause. Good men, who reputations are tarnished merely be being a member of a profession that contains abusers. Teachers, doctors and others don't face that kind of scorn, yet they have similar or greater numbers of abusers amongst their peers. The radical difference, of course, is that the Church (through the stupid decisions of a relative few, but influential, bishops and cardinals) chose to hide and deny the facts, rather than face them. Those men deserve the scorn. Those men deserve more scorn, and jail, as far as I am concerned.

The irony of their decision, is that they were trying (I believe) to avoid scandal and media attention and avoid a witch-hunt of sorts. By hiding it, they created the very thing they hoped to avoid.

My observation: it is difficult to tell one priest from another, one pastor from another, one cop from another, one doctor from another, etc. I mentioned this to my Catholic friend, who wrote me a two page-single spaced letter absolving the entire Catholic Church of ANY wrongdoing, and basically, I didn't know what I was talking about, because I'm not Catholic. I don't think I need to be a Catholic to understand the pain and anger I see around me, when my nephew has been diddled by a priest and doesn't know who the hell he is, and his mother thinks nothing is amiss.Hindsight is always 20/20 and that goes for this sad debacle.I'm sorry Pope Benedict abdicated. Those outside the Church will never really know the true reason. My biggest hope is that his successor will be a man of honor and a deep faith, and hopefully set things right. The Catholic Church cannot stand the secular attack coming from the WH, the Left and around the world. Nor can we, who are believers but just are not Catholic.

Well said Trailbee. We non-Catholic friends of the church share the anguish of watching devout Catholics endure the shame brought on the Church by venal princelings. I fervently hope that the new Pope selected by the Cardinals will bring integrity and perhaps some innovativeness to enable the Catholic Church to be a relevant influence for morality and good in a world rife with secular degenerates.